Various proposals have been made in the past and equipment has been offered for intra-office communications networks utilizing computers and telephones. Most such proposals suffer from the defect that they are very expensive; too expensive for most businesses, and prohibitively expensive for relatively small groups.
Therefore, a major problem attacked in making this invention is that of providing an affordable computerized office communications network.
Another problem addressed in making the invention is that it usually is necessary to provide separate equipment for dictation and telephone functions, with each sometimes requiring its own separate computer. This tends to make the total cost of equipping a set of offices relatively expensive.
A persistent problem which erodes the everyday efficiency of many offices is the transmission of messages between personnel. Internal telephone systems operate reasonably well, except when the person being called already is busy on the telephone. In such cases, so called "pink slips" are written by hand and carried to the office in question. Such slips often get lost, or delayed in transmission, and are unsatisfactory for a variety of other well-known reasons.
Another problem which exists in some office telephone systems exists in the equipment provided for automatic telephone number dialing. Computerized directories of telephone numbers often are inadequate in size and relatively difficult to gain access to and modify without the use of a large and expensive computer.
Prior devices have been proposed in which appointments are stored and reminders given regarding the appointments. However, such prior systems have been unacceptably complex, expensive and difficult to use, or they have provided inadequate information for those using them, or they have other deficiencies.
Another problem which has existed in prior internal telephone systems utilizing computers is that they may require additional operators. This is quite unsatisfactory, especially for smaller offices in which one employee often performs multiple tasks utilizing different pieces of equipment. For example, if the office has a private branch telephone exchange ("PBX"), a person is needed to operate it. If a large computer is used for internal communications, it often is difficult for a single person to operate both the computer and the PBX, both because of complexity and because of size and location requirements.
In prior office telephone systems providing call accounting; that it, accounting to determine to whom outgoing calls should be charged, the charges and billing rates for the calls, etc., the equipment has been complex, cumbersome and unduly costly.
In the past, the computers required for internal computerized telephone networks often have been relatively large and expensive. Moreover, many of them must be used for other non-communications functions. This again adds to the expensive of the system and the clutter of the office in requiring excessively large numbers of different pieces of equipment to perform different tasks.
It is contemplated that the telephone transceiver units used in the network of the present invention will have keys which are programmable specially to perform a variety of functions as desired by the user. However, since the user of the transceiver unit well may not be oriented towards or have the time to program the keys himself most or all of the programmable keys may languish in disuse, thus wasting these valuable communications tools.
In a preferred embodiment of the invention, each transceiver unit has a visual display on which messages and other information can be displayed. However, because of cost and space limitations, the size of the display preferably is modest. A problem in the use of such a display is caused by the fact that the transmission of a message to the display may erase or displace the information already being displayed, an occurrence which may be quite undesirable.
Problems also are encountered in creating messages and transmitting them from a transceiver unit. A full keyboard might be required for the creation of messages. However, this is undesirable because the transceiver unit user usually is not skilled in typing, or does not have the time or inclination to do typing. Also, the added expense and bulk of a keyboard are undesirable.
Problems also are incurred in systems including automatic telephone answering features. Although it is desired to keep a log of incoming calls recorded, this can be unduly complex and expensive.
Other problems addressed by the invention will be described below, or will be apparent from that description.